Speculation abounds this week as a little known item hits the iPhone Online Store across the US and the UK.  No, I’m not breaking news about the availability of the version 2.0 device (though I wish I could…). I’m merely pointing out that the current generation 8GB and 16GB iPhones are no longer available for purchase via Apple’s Online Store.

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XP SP3 WAS released, but got pulled; and then got released again.

I’ve been following this on and off, and it seems to me to be one of the MOST comical configuration and release management related issues I’ve bumped into in a long time. I should know, too. As a Software QA Director, I’ve been responsible not only for Test, but CM and RM as well.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see situations like the XP SP3 and Vista SP1 release issues we have (BTW, Vista SP1 is also on hold…AGAIN!) in small companies, but to see them in a retail giant like Microsoft is really bothersome…especially when the entire world runs their businesses on Microsoft software.

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… Breley!  He’s the winner of a very gently used, E-TEN X800 courtesy of E-TEN and Gear Diary!

I’ve reprinted his story here for everyone to read:

This actually occurred a week ago. I took my wife, my 7-year-old son, and our 2 month-old-son out for a walk in the park, so to speak. I decided to take my X7501 along and use my GPS software to find some Geocaches. The local park we chose has about 6 caches, plug a multicache. My older son and I were dutifully following the GPS coordinates, easily finding a few of the caches.

It was a great early evening…sunny, 74 degrees, so we enjoyed every minute of it. We were making good time and took the path less traveled to reach a particular cache. The wife and newborn stayed on the white gravel path and my older son and I scrounged around in the underbrush. The cache had to be here! The GPS says so. Unfortunately, on closer examination I noticed the internal gps had dropped the satellite signal and somehow the screen stopped animating and the cache image on the screen was in fact waaaaay behind us. We had overshot it. To make matters worse, it was getting darker, and we had about 2 miles to walk back to the car. And for any one you with small children, you quickly find out they have small bladders. “Where can I go pee, daddy???!” my son wailed. “Can your GPS point out a restroom?” my now-irritated wife asked sarcastically. Ignoring the remark, I gave my son a quick lesson on how to water the nearest tree. Whew! At least we got that out of the way.

Half-way back to the car it got VERY dark, late twilight to be sure. Unfortunately, our larval offspring #2 decided it was time to announce in his wailing siren of a coughing cry that it was time for mom to dispense proprietary dairy product. Luckily for us, the white gravel was quite visible and easy to follow and we found a bench. Nothing like the blind leading the blind, but the X7501 gave off sufficient light that I could use it as a makeshift flashlight to aid in food dispersal. Normally I bring a small flashlight when hiking, but somehow forgot this time. Doh!
We made it back finally in nearly pitch black conditions. Back at the car I examined the X7501 more closely to see what the matter was with the earlier screen freeze: it was a reminder that had popped up underneath reminding me to bring a flashlight. I had forgotten to dismiss it properly!

I want to thank everyone who entered. Picking a single winner was difficult.  I had to read through things 2 and 3 times before I could single one out, they were all so good!  I also want to thank E-TEN for graciously providing the X800 for us to review.

Breley, we’ll be contacting you shortly with instructions on how to claim your prize!

If you haven’t gotten your entry for the X800 in yet, now is your chance!  The contest ends tonight.  If you haven’t yet, click the contest link at the top of the site, and tell me about your worst GPS nightmare.  Be creative, make me laugh, and you’re sure to have a great chance at winning!

Entries close tonight at 11:59:59. No entries after midnight will be accepted. The Gear Diary Team is going to pick the winner this weekend, so WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?

Good Luck!!!

Comcast uses the less is more strategy in delivering HD content.  What’s up with that..??

I saw this over at BetaNews, and again, just had to comment. I’ve got Comcast at the house and have their HD/DVR TV package as well as their mid-tier Internet package, and VoIP phone service. My TV package includes their sports package (I wanted to get the NFL Channel as well as ESPN-HD so I could get my NFL Football games in HD.  My average, monthly cable bill runs between $200-$225 dollars, depending on any On-Demand Movies I purchase.

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Microsoft has stopped the SP1 Prereq Merry-Go-Round…

Vista SP1 has been available for a little bit, but hasn’t hit many computers in the wild due to a problem with one of the prereq KB installs.  Two months ago, when the prereq was released, it sent some computers into an endless series of reboots.  Many users stuck in that loop were without any recourse as they watched the scenery blur as they went in circles on that merry-go-round from hell.

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One of the things that I like the best about this job is the chance to look at and use some of the latest, greatest gadgets on the market today. I like writing for Gear Diary the best because of the diverse amount of products we get to look at. Recently, as many of you know, I’ve had the opportunity to take a look at a couple of new devices from E-TEN.  The E-TEN X800 is the top of the line model of the X series devices. Let’s take a quick look and see how the X800 stacks up.

Please note, that due to the recent site loss that Gear Diary had, I’m reprinting some of the previous posts related to this device as part of this review.

I’ve owned a number of different E-TEN devices, the M500, the G500, the M700, and now the X800 (and soon to be X650).  I was really concerned about this particular device, as the build quality of the previous three devices left a little to be desired. In fact, my daughter has been using the M700 for the past three months or so, and the device had some serious problems now. It is constantly getting stuck in boot loader mode, and getting it to turn on normally is a hit or miss exercise.

However, that’s another story for another time. Let’s take a look at E-TEN’s new slim, VGA powerhouse, the X800!!

The Unboxing

The box is WAY smaller than it looks here.  It’s really VERY tiny.

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So is it truly about the EULA, Apple wanting control, or is it something else entirely?

Over the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of press about Psystar, the web-based organization who has defied all speculation that it was a fly-by-night scam artist. The company emphatically insists that it’s a legitimate business who simply had payment processing issues to overcome regarding its highly publicized Mac clone/compatible PC’s. According to a post on its home page, http://www.psystar.com/, their online store is back up, in business; and orders placed during the week of 07-Apr-08 are currently shipping.

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I just got a quick note from E-TEN regarding the recent post on the announcement of the M810 and M750, and I wanted to pass it on to everyone. The M810 and M750 share identical body styles (which I really happen to like, BTW). There are just a couple subtle differences between the two devices:

The M810 has:

• HSDPA
• A Front Facing VGA Camera for Video Calls
• A Rear Facing 2MP Camera for Pictures

The M750 has

• EDGE
• A Rear Facing 2MP Camera for Pictures

The E-TEN M750 (no front camera)

I write for a couple of different sites. Including this one, I write or have written for CompuServe/AOL, Pocket PC Thoughts, Lockergnome, The Gadgeteer, CMPNet’s File Mine, WUGNET: The Windows User’s Group Network, and Gear Diary. Honestly, life is all sunshine and daisies when the site is up and your backup app is working.  However, when things go south, and you find out that your data is gone due to some sort of corruption or backup problem, life can get very complicated.

Gear Diary had a problem like this not too long ago, if you remember.  Judie, the site owner, ran around like a nut trying to work with the hosting company to get things turned around.  Some things went well, but others did not, and we had to rebuild the site from scratch.

Gear Diary is a WordPress enabled site, so many team members use the online WYSIWYG editor to create and edit content. It saves drafts, allows you to upload (and even watermark) graphics/pictures, and is, for all intent and purposes, an online word processor, much like Google Docs.  When the site went belly up, most of the content headed south the border as well.  Most team members had not saved a local copy of their work…which got me thinking…

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